Investing.com - Santee Cooper is planning to announce on Wednesday that it is seeking buyers to revive construction on a pair of nuclear reactors in South Carolina that was halted years ago, according to the WSJ.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper said the state-owned utility is working with financial advisers at Centerview Partners. Proposals will be accepted until May 5, the WSJ reported.
Santee Cooper will likely aim to find a consortium that includes a construction group, a tech firm to use the power, and an additional partner to raise capital, the WSJ said. Another power company could be a potential partner because Santee Cooper does not plan to own or operate the reactors once they are operational, the WSJ noted.
The company is wagering that interest in the project at South Carolina's massive V.C. Summer Nuclear Station will be strong, particularly among technology businesses like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) who are hunting for power sources for the data centers that underpin their artificial intelligence ambitions, the WSJ said.
Microsoft has announced a deal with Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) to reopen Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, while Google-owner Amazon has signed agreements to help fund nuclear-power projects. Other groups, including Google-owner Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook-parent Meta (NASDAQ:META), have also shown interest in backing other nuclear-power proposals.
In 2017, development of the two nuclear reactors at V.C. Summer was stopped following $9 billion in spending by Santee Cooper and then-co-owner South Carolina Electric & Gas. The latter is now a part of Dominion Energy (NYSE:D). The bankruptcy of a contractor at V.C. Summer that year also hit construction of the reactors, which were previously slated to be up and running by 2019.
Santee Cooper, which now owns 100% of the assets at the V.C. Summer plant, expects to recover some of the $9 billion that was spent, the WSJ said.